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Teachers, Nurses, and Child-Care Workers Have Had Enough
The burnout crisis in pink-collar occupations puts everyone’s well-being at risk.https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/09/teachers-nurses-child-care-job-burnout-crisis/671563/
https://archive.ph/CRpQs
The country is in the midst of a burnout crisis. In a recent American Psychological Association Work and Well-Being Survey, large proportions of American workers said that they felt stressed on the job (79 percent), plagued by physical fatigue (44 percent), cognitive weariness (36 percent), emotional exhaustion (32 percent), and a lack of interest, motivation, or energy (26 percent). Such measures are up significantly since the pandemic hit.
Nowhere is this burnout crisis worse than in the caring professions. An untold number of nurses, teachers, and child-care workers are asking themselves Is this worth it? and deciding that it is not. Nurses are walking off their jobs and quitting in droves, while those still at the bedside are experiencing high rates of depression. Shortages of teachers are prompting some school districts to institute four-day weeks and hire educators without a college degree, and more than half of educators report wanting to quit. The child-care workforce is shrinking, spurring parents to camp out overnight to win coveted day-care spots and pushing mothers out of the workforce.
Two mutually reinforcing trends are at play. Occupations that were always difficult have gotten only more so because of coronavirus-related safety concerns and disruptions, as well as pay that is not keeping up with the rising cost of living. And the tight labor market has provided an opportunity for workers to switch to better, less fraught jobs—straining their colleagues who remain and spurring still more workers to consider leaving.
Given that care workers are the people making sure that babies thrive, sick people heal, and children learn, as well as allowing parents to remain in the workforce, the burnout crisis among them is a crisis for society writ large. For decades, these positions have often required some degree of self-sacrifice, asking workers to accept modest pay and tolerate emotionally grueling duties for the greater good. The pandemic and the strong economy have made the sacrifice too much for too many, and that is ultimately putting all of us at risk. In particular women: When shortages occur in these female-dominated “pink-collar” industries, other women typically are the ones to quit their jobs, reduce their hours, or reshuffle their priorities in response.
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related
The Burnout Crisis in Pink-Collar Work
Plus: A housing revolution is coming.
https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/10/the-burnout-crisis-in-pink-collar-work/671668/
https://archive.ph/P5bFS
Isabel Fattal: How did the pink-collar crisis come about?
Annie Lowrey: Measures of workplace strain and burnout are increasing across the entire country. COVID, the economic fallout from COVID, inflation, perhaps geopolitical strife—all those things are playing in. In the caring professions, which tend to be majority-female workforce, there’s evidence that the on-the-job situation for a lot of these workers has gotten worse. They are being worked harder. Nurses are looking after more patients. Hospitals and clinics are understaffed. They’re encountering more threats, violence, and political pressure on the job. Jobs in child-care and other pink-collar fields are very low-compensated. But at the same time, the labor market is strong and the unemployment rate is low, which is giving people the chance to leave for other positions. And that puts strain on the people who remain. So there’s this kind of flywheel.
Annie Lowrey: Measures of workplace strain and burnout are increasing across the entire country. COVID, the economic fallout from COVID, inflation, perhaps geopolitical strife—all those things are playing in. In the caring professions, which tend to be majority-female workforce, there’s evidence that the on-the-job situation for a lot of these workers has gotten worse. They are being worked harder. Nurses are looking after more patients. Hospitals and clinics are understaffed. They’re encountering more threats, violence, and political pressure on the job. Jobs in child-care and other pink-collar fields are very low-compensated. But at the same time, the labor market is strong and the unemployment rate is low, which is giving people the chance to leave for other positions. And that puts strain on the people who remain. So there’s this kind of flywheel.
Isabel: Why does this hurt women, and women of color in particular, more than other workers?
Annie: You can think about this both in terms of the internal industry strain that a lot of these workers, who are often disproportionately but not exclusively female, are feeling. And when we have shortages and burnout in these sectors, what does that do societally? There, women also pay the price. When we have shortages of day-care slots or special-education programs, very often it’s women who quit their jobs or rearrange their schedules to take care of things at home.
Annie: You can think about this both in terms of the internal industry strain that a lot of these workers, who are often disproportionately but not exclusively female, are feeling. And when we have shortages and burnout in these sectors, what does that do societally? There, women also pay the price. When we have shortages of day-care slots or special-education programs, very often it’s women who quit their jobs or rearrange their schedules to take care of things at home.
Isabel: In general, care work tends to be performed overwhelmingly by women of color and immigrant women, but the care-crisis discourse has been dominated by white and middle-class parents. Is there a tension here that’s holding back solutions?
Annie: It’s important to say that when we have broken markets or broken labor standards, that affects everybody, but it doesn’t affect everybody equally. I think about this in terms of the housing crisis sometimes. It is true that very high-income families living in places like Brooklyn and San Francisco get squeezed by the housing crisis. They pay more than they want to, it’s hard for them to find a place, and maybe they don’t have the number of kids they want. It affects them, but that’s not to say that it affects them in the same way it affects someone who is, for example, undocumented and is in an unsafe living situation, or has gotten priced out such that they commute two hours every day. I think about this crisis similarly. The burnout, the pay disparities, the danger on the job, the lack of child care—who is that affecting most? Immigrant women, low-income women, people who have other societal disadvantages or have been excluded in other ways. But it’s also pervasive. The market for child care, for example, just doesn’t work in the United States unless you’re very wealthy.
Annie: It’s important to say that when we have broken markets or broken labor standards, that affects everybody, but it doesn’t affect everybody equally. I think about this in terms of the housing crisis sometimes. It is true that very high-income families living in places like Brooklyn and San Francisco get squeezed by the housing crisis. They pay more than they want to, it’s hard for them to find a place, and maybe they don’t have the number of kids they want. It affects them, but that’s not to say that it affects them in the same way it affects someone who is, for example, undocumented and is in an unsafe living situation, or has gotten priced out such that they commute two hours every day. I think about this crisis similarly. The burnout, the pay disparities, the danger on the job, the lack of child care—who is that affecting most? Immigrant women, low-income women, people who have other societal disadvantages or have been excluded in other ways. But it’s also pervasive. The market for child care, for example, just doesn’t work in the United States unless you’re very wealthy.
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25 replies
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with inflationary pressures, they will be able to buy BOTH the new Lambo and the new yacht they have been drooling over.
Roaring 20's redux for them, 100 years later.
relative calm and good sense dominate. Definitely wishing luck and strength that all who wanted professional lives teaching and healing others make it through this one. Including all those who've since no doubt remembered your warnings many times.
They deserve so much better.
